By Rob JackmanThe Daily Northwestern
Northwestern’s social system is dominated by our groups. Greeks, making up about 35 percent of the NU population, are clearly the largest of these groups. The interactions students have with people in their groups, whether it be in a party, a dinner get-together or a one-on-one conversation, define our non-academic time at NU. The people we live with, chill with and simply share life with change our perspectives and shape our experiences. At NU these groups are largely broken down into races.
Perhaps this is natural. Perhaps people will flock to others with the same skin color or cultural experiences. I hope not. But as students are doing this, it exposes one of the great lies of today’s university – diversity.
The theoretical grounds for diversity are strong. If students and faculty were homogenous in their backgrounds, opinions and interests there would be no progress in our intellectual lives. With diversity, students are exposed to others whose experiences and political positions challenge their own. The benefits of diversity come through interaction – not through mere proximity. If “cultural” Greeks, isolated in their implicitly race-exclusive social circle, call for diversity, it would be hypocritical. An appeal for diversity would be believable from someone who surrounded him or herself with a truly diverse group of brothers, sisters and friends.
The lead article in The Daily’s final issue of fall 2006 focused on declining black enrollment since the 1970s. Apparently NU is in some sort of crisis – there aren’t enough blacks here. For now, this isn’t our crisis. Our crisis is that blacks and other minorities do not spend enough time in any context with other races (and vice versa). Increasing the enrollment ratio of any race will not increase the interaction between different races and backgrounds. If NU were to eliminate social groups that construct themselves on race or a “cultural history,” it would be the first step to resolving this crisis.
The “culturally” based Greek houses, from my second-hand understanding, have cultivated something that many houses do not have: a true sense of and reflection on the institutions of brotherhood and sisterhood. In this centrally important regard, those houses represent true Greeks.
That doesn’t mean that they represent diversity. “Culturally-based” houses mock diversity’s promise.
If you think the houses of the Panhellenic Association and the Interfraternity Council still discriminate based on race, then let’s hear it. I’d love to see that battle. If they are not discriminatory, then we NU should not be split into separate Greek systems for whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians.
To benefit from diversity, unlike people must relate on a frank, intimate and trusting basis. As long as NU’s students separate into groups that retard these relations, the university’s proclamation of diversity is empty. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of the day when all races could sit together at a table of brotherhood. We have that opportunity today. Let’s take it.
Weinberg senior Rob Jackman can be reached at [email protected].
